Butch Karp: Absolute Rage Part 23

"Do I have a choice?"

"There's always a choice. In your case the choice is cooperating with me and learning something about your profession and ending up a hero, or being a hard-a.s.s and nursing a wounded ego and ending up looking like a jerk. But I don't think you're a jerk, and more important, I think you're basically honest. My wife, who you've met, has the best sc.u.mbag detector in North America, and she says she's getting a low reading in your case. However, to be frank, I think you're a good bit brighter than she thinks you are. I mean, Moses Welch? For that kind of crime?"

Hawes flushed a little and dropped his eyes, but said nothing.

Karp went on, "And as long as we're being frank, I have to say this, too: nearly everybody who starts out in this business makes the mistake you made. The cops bring in a guy and they say, 'He's the one,' and you look at the guy and the evidence and who's on D and you make an a.s.sessment: Can I win? The answer looks like yes and so you go forward, because it's a hot case, and you need a win. And when new evidence starts to show up, like it did here, that your guy is wrong, you start to figure out ways to get around or to discount that evidence, so as to keep your case in the win column. It's done every day. It's lazy and it's rotten, and it's the reason why the prisons in this country are filled with innocent mental r.e.t.a.r.ds who were defended by drunks or incompetents and prosecuted by people who wanted a win more than they wanted to honor their oath of office."

"Thank you for the lecture."

Karp ignored the sarcasm. "You're welcome. I expect it'll be the first of many. The fact of the matter is, you swung at a sucker pitch and f.u.c.ked up, and what you do when you f.u.c.k up in this business, if you're a mensch, is you admit it and bust your hump finding the right sc.u.mbag the next time. As it is, you're getting off easy. You should try f.u.c.king up big-time in New York City, when you got four major networks and the New York Times putting you in the crosshairs. What kind of ball did you play?"

Hawes goggled at this change of pace. "Who says I played ball?"

"Every prosecutor I ever met played a compet.i.tive team sport."

After a long beat, Hawes said, "Baseball. High school and college."

"Varsity?"

"Yeah. Third base. I had a tryout with Charleston. The Alley Cats, Cla.s.s A with Toronto."

"How'd you do?"

"Good field, no hit. I went to law school instead. Let me take a wild guess: you played basketball."

"You got it. High school all-American and two years at Cal before I screwed up my knee. You're a local boy, I take it."

"Born and raised. My dad managed the Exxon out on Lincoln at 130."

"So you know the situation: the unions, the miners, all the corruption horses.h.i.+t."

Hawes nodded.

"And you wanted to be state's attorney so you could clean up the evildoers and bring civility and justice to benighted Robbens County. Is that a bitter laugh, Stan?"

"My main goal was to last long enough to get a decent job a long way away from Robbens County. And it ain't horses.h.i.+t, neither. These guys don't f.u.c.k around. And I got a wife and two kids." Hawes's eyes pa.s.sed briefly over a framed picture on his desk.

"You were actually threatened?"

"I was talked to in a friendly fas.h.i.+on."

"By who-Weames?"

"No, Weames don't do the talking. Floyd."

"My wife's met him. I hear he's a sweetheart."

"Mm. If I ordered a carload of sons of b.i.t.c.hes and they just sent him, I'd sign the invoice."

"You think he's the type who'd pull a trigger?"

"I don't know about trigger, but George likes to hurt folks."

"How about the sheriff? I a.s.sume he's up to his ears in it."

"Oh, yeah, but Swett's in a different cla.s.s. Swett's a good-natured slob, good-natured for a Cade, I mean. His mom's Ben Cade's cousin, which would make him a second cousin of your alleged perps."

"Ben Cade being the Cade patriarch."

"You got it. Then we have Judge Murdoch. He's a Hergewiller."

"Not a Cade."

"No, the Hergewillers are a lot more high-tone than the Cades. Rudy Hergewiller was the sheriff here during the first Robbens County war. His people've been on the more legal end of union busting around here ever since. Your boy Poole is a Hergewiller on his mother's side."

"He's not my boy," said Karp automatically, but filed the fact away. "I a.s.sume the judge's on the graft like the sheriff."

"Yeah, but it's not even graft the way you're thinking. The company takes care of the sheriff and Murdoch like they've taken care of everyone with any power in the county since Big Tom Killebrew bought the place. It ranges from cases of whiskey at Christmas to bags of cash. It's accepted, like, I don't know, the hot dogs at a company picnic."

"And what does the company buy for this money?"

"It gets to do what it wants. It keeps it being 1910 inside the county. That was a good year for them and they don't see any reason for changing just because the rest of the world has moved on a little. Mainly it's controlling the union, the workers, that and the environmental stuff, although there they have to deal with Charleston and Was.h.i.+ngton a lot more."

"And how about you? Do you have any bags of cash?"

"I have an envelope of cash. I'm not important enough for a bag." Hawes reached into a bottom drawer of his desk and came out with the cla.s.sic fat manila envelope.

"I found this in my desk drawer two days after we arrested Mose. No note, n.o.body saw who left it there. It's two grand in hundreds."

"That's pretty cheap to buy a state's attorney on a triple murder. Did you get bought?"

"I don't know. I guess I was waiting for one of the usual suspects to show up-somebody saw them do it, or some piece of evidence no one could ignore. When Welch waltzed into town in those boots . . ." He shook his head, as if to clear it of fog. "I can't rightly recall what I thought. Relief. Okay, it wasn't one of their killings, it was just some d.a.m.n imbecile, a misfortune. I wasn't going to get any calls in the middle of the night-'You know what we want you to do, Stan.' Then I got that envelope."

"I notice you didn't spend it."

"No. And we could use the money." He picked it up and let it drop, sighing. "I guess I could have it cast in a block of Lucite, with a label, like a desk ornament."

"Before that, I'd recommend handing it over to the staties as evidence. Speaking as your legal adviser, now."

"I guess," said Hawes, putting the envelope back in the drawer. "So what do we do now?"

"Wait on the forensics. Speaking of which, the state guys came up with a couple of footprints off that boot of yours at the murder scene."

"Don't tell me. It was worn by a man half the size of Mose Welch."

"We don't know for sure, but that's the way I'd bet," said Karp. "But you knew that."

"Well, what do you want me to do, apologize?"

"Yes. To Welch and his family, and in public. You're bad, you take the s.h.i.+t."

Hawes looked off to the side until most of the red flush had departed from his cheek. He gave a curt nod.

"Good," said Karp. "So, if the crime lab stuff shows what we think it will, that'll be enough for a warrant on the Cade boys and maybe Floyd. Then we'll see if Floyd will rat out Lester Weames."

"That'll be something to see, Willie Murdoch issuing a warrant to arrest the Cades and Floyd. Maybe if they signed their names in blood on the bathroom mirror."

"Well, we'll just have to see," said Karp, and then, with a meaningful look: "I always like to give everyone a chance to do the right thing."

"Hi. It's me."

"Well, it's about time," said Marlene. "Where are you?"

"Back at the farm."

"You were supposed to keep in touch. We haven't spoken since my miraculous escape from the killer mosquitoes. What is it, a whole week?"

"Six days. Sorry. We've been running around a lot, and by the time I thought about it, it was too late. I actually did call a couple of times, but you weren't in."

"I'm not in now. We've moved, or I've moved. The state stashed us in a corporate lodge. It's pretty nice if you're really into intense boredom. On the upside, my client is sprung."

"That's great! They found the real bad guys?" Lucy's excitement as she said this was rather greater than what could be explained by an abstract pa.s.sion for justice.

"Well, we have a good idea of who they are, but there seem to be difficulties with the judge. How was your trip? The boys behaved?"

They were angels, it seemed. Lucy spun out the story of her trip, studded with amusing anecdotes. The boys had risen to the occasion of contact with their sister's peers, older but not really grown-ups, with surprising charm. They had done Boston with a minimum of whining. GC liked the Fine Arts; Zak had loved Bunker Hill. Both had loved the Museum of Science and the Aquarium. It was just the kind of conversation with her daughter that Marlene liked, a cheery tale of normal children behaving normally to the world's eye. Marlene did not much care what the world thought of her, but she wished very much to be rea.s.sured that she had not screwed up her kids too badly. Lucy had learned to provide such a.s.surances whenever they were remotely possible, as now. It had been a nice trip.

"So I guess you'll be coming home soon," said Lucy.

"I don't know. Plans are a little vague just now. Your father seems to regard this as an opportunity for a second honeymoon."

"That's nice."

"Yes, but when the phrase second honeymoon has entered my mind, which I confess it has from time to time, I usually envisioned the Cte d'Azur or Tuscany, not McCullensburg, West Vee Ay. Also, strangely enough, he seems to want me involved in the case. We had a little council of war the other day to review the forensic results, and Stan Hawes, the state's attorney here, objected strenuously to my presence. I'm not one of his favorite people. Your father took him aside and said that we needed all the brain power we could get on this and that I was the second-smartest person he knew, and now that the Welch kid is history, I was clear to stay."

"That must have made you feel good."

"I guess. Second-smartest isn't bad."

"Who's the first?" asked Lucy.

"That's what Hawes said, and Butch said, 'We'll get him, too.' He was talking about V.T."

One St. Andrew's Plaza is where the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York is quartered, just a block or so south on Centre Street from the building where Karp had spent most of his working life. It was still steaming in the City when Karp entered the cool of the lobby. He had thought it was hot in West Virginia, but a few weeks in the mountains had sufficed to make the nearly solid air of the City's streets a shock to his system. The gold lettering on the door said Criminal Division, a.s.set Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, New York Branch. Karp went in and told the secretary that he had an appointment with her branch chief, Mr. Newbury.

"Nice office, V.T.," said Karp as he shook hands. It was not a particularly nice office, for a federal bureaucrat of some standing, but small and overfull of GI furniture, and with one narrow window. There was, however, a set of original Daumier prints on the wall, and a large framed poster showing the final scene in Little Caesar, Edward G. Robinson dying in the gutter, with the caption being the film's famous last words, "Is this the end of Rico?"

"My palatial office, as my staff calls it," said the other, waving Karp to a seat. "The problem is I am housed in the U.S. Attorney's Office but not of it, therefore of low pecking order when it comes to goodies. I report directly to the criminal division in D.C."

"And you're here because of . . . ?"

"It's where they keep all the money," said Newbury in a confidential voice. He was a small, elegant man, handsome in a peculiar old-fas.h.i.+oned, old-money way, like a model in a 1920s cigarette ad. He was from a famous New York family of h.o.a.ry antecedence, with its wealth so extensive and encrusted with verdigris that it was simply no longer a consideration. He had started in the DA's office at about the same time as Karp, an unlikely enough event for one of that pedigree, and with even greater unlikelihood he had become Butch Karp's best friend. Karp had not seen him for some time, but it was not entirely friends.h.i.+p that had brought him here. V.T. Newbury was one of the nation's premier experts on dirty money.

After some chatter about personal things, Karp brought up his current occupation, laying out the case itself and the peculiar sociopolitical matrix in which it was embedded.

"So we have enough to arrest and probably convict at least three of the perps, Earl and Wayne Cade, they're cousins, and Bo Cade, Earl's brother. Floyd was more careful, but I don't think it'll be much trouble getting the Cade boys to roll on him. The problem is the judge, a guy named Murdoch. Completely in the tank to the people who apparently own the town and who, indirectly or not, set up the hit on the victims. The state cop I'm working with, Wade Hendricks, thinks that as soon as we ask for a warrant and show our cards, this t.u.r.d is going to warn them off and make a lot of trouble with the warrants, and in general screw up any chance that we'll be able to get these guys. So, why I thought of you is, I need another judge."

Newbury mimed looking in drawers and under the drift of papers on his desk. "Gosh, we had a bunch of judges stashed here the other day, but they must all be out at the fumigator's."

"What I mean is, the guy takes home eighty-two five per year. He paid cash for a sixty-grand car, and since he got into robes, he's bought hundreds of acres of property plus a twenty-room house. How are they getting him the money?"

Newbury wore an incredulous look. "You want me to initiate a prosecution against a county judge for taking bribes?"

"No, of course not. I just want the goods on him. I want enough doc.u.mentation to knock him out of the box. Look, these guys are crude. They've been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g this county so long that they've almost forgotten it's illegal. It won't be multiple anonymous transactions via Nauru and Liechtenstein. It might even be actual big cash deposits, naked. All I need are bank records, or sources of funds if they used noncash transfers."

"Why not go to the state on this?"

"Too long to get them moving, too political. I don't know who we can trust. The governor agrees."

Newbury nodded. "I see. And our legal basis would be . . . ?"

"Our long friends.h.i.+p. Come on, V.T., think up a plausible entry. You're a fed, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, your federal government, where the Fourth Amendment is just a slogan. Still . . ." Newbury looked off to the side, seemingly studying the poster of the dying Hollywood gangster. Karp waited confidently as his friend's remarkable brain ticked away.

"Robbens County," Newbury said after a minute of this. "Where have I heard that name recently?"

"The murders maybe? There was some coverage . . ."

"No, murder is of little interest to us here in the white-collar world. Whacking is so blue-collar. Of course, now that the Russians and the Viets are getting involved, this may change, but . . . no, I'm positive it was more recently, the other day, I think. Some report . . ."

He flicked through a set of vertical files and pulled out a slim sheaf of papers, scanned them briefly. "Yeah, here it is. This is about the methamphetamine production and distribution system in the Northeast, and it looks like your Robbens County produces a good deal of crank. Do you think that might be the source of some of Judge Murdoch's extra disposable income? Say yes."

"Yes," said Karp.

"Well, then on the basis of a knowledgeable and anonymous informant, I feel justified in adding Judge Murdoch as a subject of the investigation we're currently running on meth-gang money laundering."

"And about time, too. How long before you know something?"

"If they're as dumb as you say? A day or two."

"That fast?"

V.T. gestured to the Little Caesar poster. "It's part of the wonder of RICO. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act is the neatest thing to come along since they closed down the Star Chamber. We practically have general warrants to fish and fish around anyone named until we find something. Your judge is a gimme if he ever used the banking system. We could make toast out of Learned Hand."

Karp walked north through Foley Square, keeping as much as possible in the shade of the tall buildings. He pa.s.sed 100 Centre Street, easily resisting the impulse to drop in and see what was going on. He pa.s.sed the Tombs and spared a thought for what it must be like to be imprisoned without air-conditioning, without even a fan, in this oppressive heat. Sympathy, but even more bafflement. Despite all the years he had spent in criminal justice, Karp had never developed a workable psychology of crime. Okay, you had your lunatics, but most of these slobs were rational actors. They thought risking that horror was actually worth some marginal gain, so they broke into buildings, stole cars, pa.s.sed bad checks, stuck guns in ribs. Many of his colleagues, Karp knew, thought that the criminals didn't mind jail and prison, that it was a rite of pa.s.sage for lower-cla.s.s youth of a certain stripe: no big, as they said. Karp didn't believe that. He believed that criminals were able to suppress in their minds the inevitability of punishment, as we all suppress the other inevitability, quite successfully, for most of our lives. For jail was inevitable. Virtually no one did just one crime. Crime inevitably became habitual, and sooner or later Leviathan would notice and chomp! Into the stinking, sweating cages. Helped along by cops and such as Karp.

He crossed through Chinatown. Everyone, it seemed, was out on the street, except those in the sweatshops, literally sweating today no doubt, just like the jailbirds, although these had committed no crime except being born poor in Asia. He pa.s.sed vent fans that blew out air only a little hotter than that filling the narrow streets. Did South Asians suffer as much from the heat or was that racism? He pa.s.sed little groups of men in T-s.h.i.+rts or wife-beater unders.h.i.+rts, with rags knotted around their heads, all smoking. The breath from the doorways was scented with boiling rice, anise, venerable greases. Crosby Street was less crowded. Here it was almost entirely industrial, except for his building, which had been converted to residential lofts. There was also one sad Chinese brothel and gambling den, his neighbor.